Ko'sso is a fast-paced ball game played by the
Afar people. The
ball
A ball is a round object (usually spherical, but sometimes ovoid) with several uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for s ...
is made up of rolled goatskins. The object of the game is to keep the ball away from players on the opposing
team
A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal.
As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to in ...
. In the past, Ko'sso teams could be quite large; in fact, they could be made up of over one hundred players. There is still no set number of players per team.
Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger (3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003), also known as Mubarak bin Landan (, ''the blessed one of London'') was a British military officer, explorer, and writer. Thesiger's travel books include '' Arabian Sands'' (1959), ...
describes a very similar games played by the Afar which he calls gaso. However, his description varies from Ko'sso in that there are no teams—every player is against all others—and once the ball is taken out of the reach of the other players, the player in control of the ball then must bounce it and catch it on the back of his hand.
[Wilfred Thesiger, ''The Danakil Diary: Journeys through Abyssinia, 1930-4'' (Hammersmith: Flamingo, 1996), p. 141.]
Notes
See also
*
Afar people
The Afar (), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern co ...
External links
Korso, Original Rugby-
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
video clip of the game.
Ball games
{{Africa-sport-stub